


The Wench Is Dead

by Chryse



Series: Another Country [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Extremely Dubious Consent, Flashback, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, PLEASE READ THE FOREWORD NOTE, Past Relationship(s), Underage - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:53:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8871142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chryse/pseuds/Chryse
Summary: “You thought…not just you, Molly too. Probably everyone assumed it. You thought that bad things happened because I used drugs. That I made terrible choices and got myself hurt. And you weren’t wrong, not exactly. You just got it backwards.”What Sherlock put in the box.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Readers should be aware that this story depicts a predatory and exploitative sexual relationship between a fourteen-year-old Sherlock and an older relative. If reading about these issues will distress you, PLEASE DON'T READ THIS FIC. This story is set about ten months after the end of "Another Country" (with Caring!John fully intact) so it does have a happy ending, but it's not exactly a happy journey. If you want more specific information, or you have any questions at all, please email me at askchryse@gmail.com. If you decide this fic is not for you, that is 1000% fine--I wrote "Another Country" to stand alone, and you are absolutely free to headcanon any backstory for Sherlock you like. (If you want to write it up, let me know and I'll link it!)

John had thought that Sherlock would probably never tell him.

It was fine. John was certain in his love for Sherlock as he had been sure of few things in his life, and he knew that Sherlock loved him; nothing else mattered, not really. Besides, he rather thought he knew as much as he needed to. Sherlock was obviously experienced sexually—his body knew how to respond when John touched him—but otherwise naïve; he had _no_ idea how to respond when John kissed him. When John held him he clung too tightly or, worse, not at all. So: Sherlock knew sex but not intimacy, and his drug use had been most out of control when he’d been young and pretty and vulnerable. You didn’t need to be a consulting detective to work that out.

As time went on the past—both of their pasts--mattered less. Sherlock’s vulnerability drew from John a tenderness he had never been able to express with anyone else; it made him realize how guarded he had always been, how much of himself he had held back. He held nothing back from Sherlock. Sherlock needed his whole heart, all the love and affection John could give him; Sherlock _deserved_ John’s whole heart.

In the warmth of John’s love, Sherlock blossomed. The dissociative episodes that John had found so unnerving gradually stopped, their sex life was fantastic, and in private Sherlock was more loving and affectionate than John could have ever imagined. (In public, of course, he was acidic as ever.) It was easy, as they went on, to forget even to wonder.

 

There was a case. A street kid, a runaway, a drug user. Transgender. Traded sex for drugs and ended up dead. Sherlock solved it without batting an eyelash but the boy haunted John: the too-soft face and wispy curls at the base of his neck. At the back of his mind the unspoken thought hovered: _that could have been him. The best thing in my life, snuffed out before I ever even knew._

Sherlock’s quick eyes flicked to his face, and then away.

It was a relief to back home, the flat cozy and warm with Christmas decorations. After dinner John settled into his chair by the fire with a drink, still feeling a little down, thinking about letting himself doze off over a journal. Sherlock had been knocking aimlessly around the lounge—picking up his violin, putting it down, looking out the window--but now he came over and settled into his chair across from John. “That isn’t what happened,” he said.

John looked up. “Sorry?”

“That isn’t what happened. To me.”

John felt his heartbeat pick up at the same time the rest of him settled into stillness. Battle ready. Sherlock was not looking at him; he was gazing steadily into the fire. John breathed quietly, making himself settle, calm his racing heart. Waiting to listen. To everything Sherlock would say, and everything that he wouldn’t, and after a long time Sherlock took a breath and spoke.

“You thought…not just you, Molly too. Probably everyone assumed it. You thought that bad things happened because I used drugs. That I made terrible choices and got myself hurt. And you weren’t wrong, not exactly. You just got it backwards.”

 

“I don’t see why he has to come _now,_ ” Sherlock said sulkily. “Why can’t he visit when I’m at school?” The thought of the Easter holidays had been the only thing keeping Sherlock from drowning himself in the school showers for the past few weeks, and all he wanted was to be left alone.

“Because he’s your brother, and he wants to see you,” Mummy said with irritation. She was fussing about in the kitchen, never a situation likely to portend a good mood.

“He’s already seen me.”

“That was seven years ago! You don’t even remember him!”

This was true. Sherlock’s half-brother had visited precisely twice: once on a trip back to England with his father when Sherlock was all of six months old, and once traveling on a gap year when Sherlock had been about to turn seven.

“Of course you remember,” Mycroft said from where he was lounging in the doorway. “You were seven years old, you weren’t _that_ young. He was here for Christmas.”

Something in Mycroft’s tone told Sherlock he wasn’t any more pleased about this visit than Sherlock was. They exchanged a glance, one of those moments of perfect understanding that seemed to be getting more and more rare these days, and Sherlock closed his eyes in an effort to dredge up the memory. Christmas. He had a vague memory of someone who hadn’t brought Sherlock a gift and was too old to be interesting, but there was something…hadn’t he twitted Mycroft about his weight? “I thought you called him Charlie.”

“I did call him Charlie because that’s what we called him when he was little, but he wants to be called Rowan, so call him Rowan,” Mummy said, frowning into the pantry. “Am I really out of flour? Mikey, would you mind terribly dashing over to the village?”

“ _I_ want to be called Mycroft, could you manage that?” Mycroft said, in what even Sherlock considered to be an excessively snide tone of voice.

Mummy shut the pantry with a snap and gave Mycroft a look that made him drop his gaze in a hurry. “Anything else?”

“Better get some more sugar, I don’t know where it goes and I’m sure to run short for the icing,” Mummy said, rummaging in her purse for money. “And some butter. Thank you, _Mycroft.”_

Mycroft departed, looking mollified, and Mummy sighed. “Well, I can’t do much without flour. Put the kettle on, Sherlock.”

“Why did you get divorced from Rowan’s father?” Sherlock asked, since his mother seemed to be taking a break from her ineffectual kitchen flurrying.

Mummy looked up at him with narrowed eyes, but Sherlock looked straight back at her: he really did want to know. His half-brother’s existence—Charles Rowan Vernet Sherrinford—had been one of those irrelevant facts of life for as long as he could remember, like his grandparents’ war service; he’d never really thought about him before. Except to be secretly annoyed that he’d got their mother’s name when Sherlock hadn’t.

“Probably better ask why I married him in the first place,” Mummy said a little wryly.

“Why did you then?”

“Oh, well.” Mummy fetched tea from the cupboard. “I was the only woman at Cambridge getting a doctorate in maths, and I was top in my year, and truth to tell that made things a bit lonely. Rowan’s father was willing to overlook what everyone else seemed to see as the handicap of my brains, at least until I became more successful than he was, and I thought that he was the best I could do. After a while I realized that even if he was I didn’t have to settle for that.” She smiled fondly. “And of course that turned out to be wrong. I did much better with your father. Do you want tea?”

“No thank you. What do you mean, more successful? At the college?” Sherlock’s mother had taught maths at the small local college since Sherlock had been in primary school.

“No, this was when I worked for the government. It’s something of a family tradition, you know, your grandmother was one of the top code breakers during the war, though that’s all very classified. So was what I was doing as well. I suppose Mycroft will be carrying that on now. “

Sherlock had no interest in Mycroft’s boring career. “Why didn’t Rowan live with you instead of going with his dad to Australia? Don’t kids usually stay with their mums?”

A shadow passed over his mother’s face. “I wanted him to. But this was 1967, remember, and things were different then, and Rowan’s father made things…very difficult. He wasn’t pleased I wanted the divorce.” She poured her tea. “And then he took Cha—he took Rowan to live in Australia with him, and I’ve only seen him twice in all that time. So of course I’m pleased he’s gone to live in London now, and I’m delighted that he’s coming for Easter.” She gave Sherlock a pointed look. “And since he’s your brother, you’d best be pleased too. Now run along and help your father tidy the garden.”

 

“This visit means a lot to your mother,” Sherlock’s father said mildly, handing Sherlock a rake. “So I trust you’ll do your best to get along.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. His best had not produced very satisfactory results at _getting along_ so far. “Mycroft is already more big brother than anybody needs.”

His father gave him a look. “This isn’t about what you need.”

“Nothing ever is,” Sherlock muttered, willing as ever to turn every conversation into a pretext for sulking about how much he hated school.

 

Sherlock was prepared to hate Rowan, just on general principles and pure adolescent obstreperousness, and had already established a clear mental image of a slightly older version of Mycroft’s stuffy public-school-stiff acquaintances. But Rowan turned out to be none of those things. He was handsome, with Sherlock and Mummy’s sharp cheekbones, a cheerful Australian accent, and thick fair hair spiked up with gel. He even had an earring! Sherlock was dazzled by the sheer exoticness of it all. And when Rowan turned from booming, “Mike, mate! You’ve hardly changed a bit! Got to get you out of the library more!” to greet Sherlock with a long whistle and “Look how this one’s grown up! _That’s_ little Sherlock?” Sherlock decided on the spot that this brother was a decided improvement.

“Not so little anymore,” Father said proudly, and Sherlock scowled, embarrassed. He had shot up six inches over the past few months and felt as awkward as a helicopter, his suddenly-enormous hands and feet always crashing into things.

“He’s a looker, all right,” Rowan said with approval. It would have been horrifyingly crude coming from any other adult of their acquaintance, but Rowan made it sound genuinely flattering. “You’ll be beating the girls off with a stick, eh, Mum?”

 _Mum?_ Sherlock could feel Mycroft’s eyebrows shoot up from across the room. “How about a drink then?” Sherlock’s father said, gesturing toward the sitting room. “Tell us all about the new job.”

Rowan told them about the job, his new flat (“Barely anything in there yet, just a bed and a stereo system—got that before the bed”, his befuddlement at the sheer size of London, his desire to buy a car. He was funny and self-deprecating and Sherlock could tell his parents were just as charmed as he was which, for once, did not seem annoying. When his mother stood to return to the kitchen Rowan offered to help and, on being rebuffed, asked if he had time for a walk. “Haven’t been out in the country in ages,” he said.

“I’ll show you,” Sherlock said, leaping up eagerly.

On the way out he heard Mycroft muttering something to his father, sourly, about “Someone’s got a bit of a crush,” but he ignored it. Mycroft was just jealous that their charming new family member liked Sherlock better for once, that was all.

“Your brother’s a bit of an old woman, isn’t he?” Rowan said, as though reading Sherlock’s mind. _Your_ brother, Sherlock noted. “What is he, four years younger than me? My old dad’s more fun than he is.”

Sherlock laughed, although not without a tiny qualm of guilt, which he quickly squashed. Ever since he’d started primary school people had been comparing him unfavorably to Mycroft. They climbed up the low hill behind the back garden where a little copse of woods ran down to a stream, liberally dotted with daffodils.  Rowan stopped and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Don’t tell Mum,” he said, grinning at Sherlock.

Sherlock couldn’t help smiling back. Rowan still had his Australian tan, and his eyes crinkled when he smiled. He seemed so much brighter than everyone else in Sherlock’s family, like the daffodils in the winter-brown grass.

“Want one?” Rowan asked conspiratorially, and Sherlock nodded in wordless adoration.

 

Rowan aimed the full force of his charm directly at Mycroft over dinner, as though to make up slagging him to Sherlock. He got Mycroft talking about the position he would be starting in Her Majesty’s Government when he finished at university in a few months, a topic on which he could talk for hours, and Mycroft droned on with what passed (for him) for enthusiasm, sending Sherlock into a ham-filled stupor. Rowan caught his eye when Mycroft wasn’t looking and winked.

Finally his mother managed to steer the topic onto something equally dull, some wedding or other that was coming up, and Sherlock was drifting off again when he caught his mother saying, “Three weeks.”

“What?” he said, coming to full alertness again. “You can’t be away in three weeks, that’s a home weekend.” He could not possibly stay at school for an uninterrupted six weeks! The very thought filled him with horror.

“What’s this home weekend?” Rowan asked.

Mummy explained, Mycroft jumping in and rolling his eyes at Sherlock’s childishness (“obviously some boys are homesick in the beginning, but most get over it by the end of term”) and Sherlock sinking down into his chair in mute, furious despair.

“Well, if you’re going to be away,” Rowan said, “what if Sherlock stays with me in London?”

Everyone stared at him and then turned to stare at Sherlock, who sat upright and said “Yes” as quickly as possible to forestall Mycroft coming up with some stupid objection.

“Why, that sounds lovely,” Mummy said. Her astonished expression was slowly giving way to a sort of bemused pleasure. “Doesn’t it, Sherlock?”

“Thank you Rowan,” Sherlock said obediently. For once in his life, he actually meant it.

 

Later, when Rowan had gone to the station with Father, Mycroft cornered Sherlock by the stairs. “You know,” he said a bit stiffly, “you can always come and stay with me at Cambridge.”

“Why would I want to come to Cambridge? You’d just tell me to study the whole time. I want to go to London and have fun.”

Mycroft shrugged a little, looking away. Sherlock stared at him. Did Mycroft actually feel…what did Mycroft feel? ( _Did_ Mycroft feel?) He felt a flash of guilt, remembering their moment of shared communion in the kitchen. “He’s not so bad, you know.”

“When you get older,” Mycroft said pompously, “you’ll learn to be wary of charismatic people.”

Oh for God’s sake, Mycroft really was an old woman. “Yes, thank you ever so much for that sage advice,” Sherlock said cuttingly. “Now come on, we’ve got to finish the washing up.”

 

When Sherlock arrived at the station Rowan was there waiting, grinning at Sherlock as though he’d just arrived from an alien planet with freakishly amusing customs. “God, this country! Don’t they let you shed the uniform when you leave school?”

Sherlock looked down at himself in surprise. “This isn’t my uniform.” He was wearing neatly pressed trousers with a shirt and dark jumper, the sort of thing he always wore when he came home.

“Christ, you’re serious,” Rowan said. “We cannot have this. You are aging before my eyes, you’ll be smoking a pipe with Mycroft next. Do you even own jeans? Come on, we’re going shopping.”

The shop was loud and bright with a thumping bass music on the overhead speakers. It made Sherlock twitchy, but Rowan piled an armful of acid-washed denim into his hands and said, “Go on, try those on. I’ll find you a t-shirt.”

Sherlock pulled on the jeans. He felt ridiculous, as though trying to pass as somewhat else, but when he came out to the three-way mirror a girl glanced back at him over her shoulder and Rowan said, “ _Much_ better. You need to show off that arse! You’ll need trainers but I’ve loads, I think we’re about the same size, so you can have one of my old pairs.”

“They’re tight,” Sherlock said, face burning from the remark about his arse.

“They’re supposed to be! Here, try this on. I’ve loads of old t-shirts as well if you don’t like anything here. I don’t know why I brought all that rubbish all the way from home. Most of them are bands…who do you like?”

“Er.” Sherlock tried desperately to think of a band. He listened almost exclusively to classical music, of course, and considered the sort of thing the other boys blasted during free periods an assault to his ears.

Rowan buried his face theatrically in his hands. “I can’t stand it. All right, we’ll work on that next.”

They got fish and chips and went to Rowan’s flat, which, he said, he had been working on furnishing in anticipation of Sherlock’s visit: “I’ve bought a sofa so you’ve someplace to sleep.” The sofa was leather. Sherlock wondered if he would slide right off it in the night. The weekend was taking on a surreal quality, as though he were borrowing a life that belonged to someone else, a sensation which only increased when Rowan handed him a beer—a beer!—and said, “We will now begin your musical education.”

Next morning Sherlock showered self-consciously in Rowan’s bathroom, emerging in his new jeans, Rowan’s trainers and an “Out of Time” t-shirt. Rowan looked him over critically. “Not quite,” he said and steered him back in, squirting a dab of some kind of clear goo onto one palm and massaging it into Sherlock’s curls. Sherlock felt hot and strange. No one had stood so close to him in years, not even his mother, and the feeling of fingers working through his scalp was…sweat prickled his armpits.

“Excellent,” Rowan said, stepping back, and Sherlock opened his eyes to survey a stranger’s reflection. Only the eyes were his, frost-grey and bewildered.

“Know what we’re going to do today?” Rowan said cheerfully, draping an arm over Sherlock’s shoulders. “We’re going to go to Madame Tussauds like a couple of tourists, and then we’re going to get you a Discman.”

 

That night they brought back curry and ate it on the sofa, Rowan not having got around to buying a table yet, music playing on the stereo system. “You don’t like beer much, do you?” Rowan observed, peering at Sherlock’s barely-touched bottle. “Here, try this.”

Sherlock took the whisky doubtfully, but he would rather die than admit to Rowan he’d never tried it, so he took a swig. It set his eyes to watering and made him cough. “Careful!” Rowan said, laughing and smacking him between the shoulder blades. “If you’re going to chug go back to the beer. This is for sipping.”

Sherlock tried a smaller swallow this time, and it went down better. The alcohol set up a pleasant warmth in his body, spreading out from his stomach all the way into his hands and feet, and he began to relax. Rowan’s hand stayed on his back. It was nice, Sherlock thought hazily.

“So,” Rowan said. The disc ended, and Sherlock saw the flicker of rainbow light in the CD rack as the next one slotted into place. The new music was quieter, less driving. “Have you got a girlfriend at school?”

Sherlock choked on his whisky again. “Hardly,” he managed, when he’d got his breath back. “My school doesn’t have any girls.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Rowan said, rolling his eyes. “Outside school then? No? How about a boyfriend?”

“A _boyfriend,_ ” Sherlock said, shocked.

Rowan raised his eyebrows. “Please tell me you aren’t that sheltered.”

“No—I mean—“ Sherlock felt panic rise in his chest. The other boys at school treated homosexuality as a joke, a target for scorn and derision; Sherlock had never heard anyone speak of it so casually. It must be a trap. If Rowan found out, if he knew about Sherlock’s most hidden desires, he’d never want to see him again. “I’m not like that.”

“Yeah? How do you know?”

Sherlock’s chest felt tight. He took a long drink of his whisky. Rowan’s other hand was on his thigh now, how had that happened?

“You don’t really know until you try,” Rowan was saying conversationally. “I mean, I tried both, girls and boys, and turned out I liked boys.”

Sherlock stopped breathing.

“So what do you think? Should we find you a girl?”

Sherlock shook his head, a quick negative jerk

“A boy?”

“No,” Sherlock whispered, strangled.

“Nobody?” Rowan teased. The hand moved up his thigh, and Sherlock watched, mesmerized, as his legs fell open without him consciously willing it. Rowan’s other hand curved around the back of his neck. “God, you’re tense. Relax, I won’t hurt you. I just want to see if you like it.”

Rowan’s hand was warm on his neck. Sherlock tried to relax, took another drink. His lips felt numb on the glass. He didn’t know what to do with his other hand, which lay limp and stupid on the sofa next to his leg, the leg Rowan was now running his hand up and down, higher and higher. Sherlock tried to take another drink, but the glass was empty, so he lowered it to the sofa. “Relax,” Rowan whispered in his ear. “Relax, it’s all right,” and Sherlock let his head fall back. The slow gliding pressure moved down again, toward his knee, and then up, and up, and then—he had never felt anything like this, the heat of someone else touching there, _pressing,_ rubbing in slow gentle circles where he was trapped in the death grip of his tight jeans. Sherlock, hazy with lust and alcohol, had a momentary fantasy of the button fly simply exploding outward from the strain of his erection, sending buttons pinging around the room like round bullets. It didn’t happen. Instead his legs spread wider, heels digging into the ground to press his groin up into that glorious pressure. God, the constriction of his jeans was like torture. And then, just to make it worse, the relentless motion of Rowan’s hand slowed. “What do you think?” Rowan breathed, tickling Sherlock’s ear. “I think you like it.”

Sherlock nodded, hot and shamed and desperate, trying fruitlessly to grind himself up into Rowan’s still hand. “You want more?” Rowan whispered and Sherlock nodded again, trying to speak but managing only a pathetic sort of whimper. Rowan laughed and his hand squeezed Sherlock’s neck, which felt good, but it didn’t matter because at the same time he was undoing Sherlock’s buttons with deft fingers and sliding his hand into Sherlock’s pants. Sherlock jerked as though he’d been electrocuted. He tried to dig his fingers into the sofa but the smooth leather gave no purchase. His fingers scrabbled, desperate for something to hold onto, finally clutching at Rowan’s own thigh and his own hair. The flat was spinning around him, the strange flat with its dimmed halogen light and the CD playing and the smell of the leather, everything spinning around the sensation of Rowan’s hand stroking him. This can’t really be happening, Sherlock thought hazily, I’m dreaming this; this handsome near-stranger, this twenty-five-year-old man, cannot be getting me off on a leather sofa, this isn’t my life—but just then Rowan, who had been quickening his pace, stroked his thumb in just the right spot and Sherlock came, thrusting frantically into his half-brother’s fist.

 

Sherlock spent the next few weeks feeling as though he were in an out-of-body experience. He went through the motions—lessons, meals, avoiding his classmates—but his mind was fixed on London and Rowan. He spent all of his free time lying moodily on his bed, listening to his new Cure CD through the Discman’s headphones. His parents rang a few days after the weekend and Sherlock leaped to the phone electric with hope, but they just wanted to ask how things had gone. Sherlock slumped, disappointed, and answered all their questions in petulant monosyllables (“Yes, fine, the sofa, he bought one, no”). As Sherlock was fourteen, this did not excite attention.

His spirits sank further as the next home weekend drew closer without a repeat invitation. True, Rowan had said nothing about having him back. In fact the next day Rowan had said nothing at all about what had transpired the night before; he had acted as though they had spent an ordinary night watching telly. Still…Sherlock arrived home clutching to a tattered thread of hope that Rowan might be coming as well, but no mention of him was made at all. Life was _horrible._  At least Mycroft wasn’t around to witness his gloom.

On Sunday morning Sherlock was moping about, ignoring his mother’s chiding to start getting his things together, when the phone rang. Something about the way his mother’s voice brightened pricked Sherlock’s ears and he listened, pretending disinterest, as his mother said, “Oh, lovely! That’s terribly kind of you. Yes, I’m sure that will be fine. I’ll put him on.”

Oh please please please, thought Sherlock.

“Sherlock! Telephone.”

Sherlock barely contained himself from leaping to his feet, though he did sulk over to the phone with a bit more alacrity than usual.

The sound of Rowan’s hearty voice sent electricity sparking up his spine. “Hey, mate, I’m going to New York for a work trip, shall I bring you back something?”

“Yes please,” Sherlock said, breathless, “something from –from the music store in Times Square.”

“Good call,” Rowan said approvingly. “And Mum says you can come up on your next weekend, so I can give it to you then, is that all right?”

It was fantastic.

 

Rowan brought him back a poster and a Nine Inch Nails CD. He’d bought a table and chairs since Sherlock had been there last and they ate their takeaway at the table, Sherlock mourning the distance between them and getting hard every time Rowan bumped his knee. Then Rowan, clearing the remains of their food unceremoniously into the bin, said over his shoulder, “All right, do you know how to dance?”

Sherlock’s heart sank. He knew by now how Rowan would take the piss if he knew the type of dancing Sherlock knew, so he just shook his head.

“Thought so. I went to some great places in New York but we’ll have to get you trained up before we go out. Come on, on your feet.”

Rowan put on some thumping techno and dragged Sherlock, paralyzed with mortification, to the center of the floor. Sherlock felt ridiculous and knew he looked even worse, but Rowan turned the lights all the way down and put his hands on Sherlock’s hips to guide him, and suddenly Sherlock forgot to be self-conscious. He jerked about awkwardly, Rowan’s hands trying to guide him into moving in some sort of rhythm, their bodies bumping in a way that made Rowan laugh and Sherlock go hot and flustered.

Rowan’s hands slipped a little lower and back, almost on Sherlock’s buttocks, and Sherlock felt the strain in his button fly again. “Like this. Back and forth. It’s like sex, yeah? Find the beat.”

Sherlock closed his eyes—he understood _find the beat_ at least, and anyway it was impossible to lose the beat, the music was practically all beat—and managed to flail in concert with Rowan for a few seconds. Rowan laughed. “Now you’re getting it! Like sex, right?”

Sherlock opened his eyes. Here was his opening. “I don’t know,” he said, not quite meeting Rowan’s eye. “I don’t know about sex. I mean—I think, I think you’re right, I think I like boys, but they don’t teach us—they only teach us about girls, and—“ He had practiced this in his head the entire train ride, and now he sounded like an utter idiot. He took a deep breath. “Will you show me?”

Sherlock spent the night in Rowan’s bed that night, although he didn’t sleep. He lay wide awake, still dazed with shock at the fact that he was actually here, in bed with Rowan, _naked!_  Sherlock had never slept naked before. He had also never willingly shed his clothing in front of another person and had thought he might die of humiliation, but Rowan had, for once, ceased his teasing and was kind. Rowan himself was beyond beautiful, sun-bronzed and muscular, even his body hair groomed; but he had touched Sherlock in all his skinny, grasshopper-leg awkwardness and made Sherlock feel that he was lovely too. When Rowan had pulled their bodies together for the first time and rolled on top of him Sherlock had almost come on the spot.

Sherlock would have let him do anything, but Rowan only showed him how to use his hands, that weekend. For the first time Sherlock wrapped his long, thin fingers round a cock that wasn’t his own and brought another person to orgasm, an accomplishment that left him almost breathless: if he got good at this, Rowan might keep bringing him back! He learned how to stroke them both together, Rowan’s hand sliding over his as they thrust against each other; he understood what Rowan meant about the dancing now. He tried to pay attention and learn what Rowan liked, but it was so hard with the siren song of his own adolescent hormones driving him to orgasm so rapidly. 

On the morning he was to leave Sherlock woke to Rowan’s weight on top of him, moving in a slow grind that distracted Sherlock immediately from the heavy pressure on his chest. He was already hard. Rowan’s far heavier body was pressed into him so that there was hardly any room for friction, but that didn’t matter; in a manner of minutes he was panting and squirming and so aroused that all Rowan had to do was prop himself on his forearms and rut against him a few times and Sherlock was coming, hot and wet between them. Rowan knelt up, straddling Sherlock’s hips, and smeared Sherlock’s come onto his own erection. Then he guided Sherlock’s limp hand to his cock and said, “Do it.”

Sherlock put all his newfound knowledge into it. He gripped Rowan’s hip with one hand and pumped his cock with the other. Rowan took a lot longer than Sherlock did and Sherlock’s hands began cramping, but of course he couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down—he would do this forever, just to hear Rowan’s voice groaning over him, feel Rowan’s hand squeezing his arm.

It went on so long Sherlock was actually starting to get hard again but finally Rowan’s groans thickened to grunts. Sherlock, a fast learner, put on one last burst of speed and then slowed when Rowan thrust into his hand, semen pulsing onto Sherlock’s chest and spattering onto his face. That startled him, but he didn’t break pace, stroking Rowan through the aftershocks until Rowan stilled him with a hand on his wrist. Rowan opened his eyes and looked down at Sherlock. He smiled, but Sherlock didn’t smile back—something about that smile chilled him.

“Look at Mummy’s baby boy now,” Rowan said softly. He reached down and ran a finger through the wet glob on Sherlock’s chest. Then, to Sherlock’s shock, he pushed the finger into his mouth.

Sherlock had no idea what to do. The taste was thick and unpleasant on his tongue, and why was Rowan putting his finger into his mouth? Pure reflex made him close his mouth around it and Rowan grinned again, his usual cheeky smile, but there was the echo of something darker still lurking there.

Rowan pulled his finger out, leaving the bitter slime in Sherlock’s mouth, and ran his thumb over Sherlock’s bottom lip. “Next time I’ll teach you to suck my cock,” he said softly.

Sherlock swallowed. “Yes,” he whispered.

 

Next time did not come for quite a while. Term ended, and Sherlock was dragged off on holiday with his family, and then returned to the infinite boredom of home. This had seemed the most desirable place in the world when he was trapped at school in the days he now thought of as Before, but now just seemed excruciatingly dull. He and Mummy did go up to London for several days, but that was to visit Mycroft’s new flat and buy Sherlock new clothes. He had outgrown everything, including the acid-washed jeans, to his secret dismay.

On the last night Rowan joined them for dinner and made Sherlock even more miserable by being at his most relentlessly charming. He and Mycroft even had a lively discussion about the annoyances of flat furnishing, which was absolutely the most uninteresting topic Sherlock could imagine. Sherlock slid lower in his seat, sulking. He felt stupid and schoolboyish in his new jumper and hated his mother for not buying him jeans, even though he had never actually asked her to.

“All right there, mate?” Rowan asked, infuriatingly upbeat.

“Sherlock, sit _up,_ ” Mummy said. “He’s just angry because we’re to go home tomorrow and he never got to the British Museum. He loves going there, but honestly, we’ve not even finished the shopping! He just doesn’t like anything at all these days.”

“I don’t like _shopping,_ ” Sherlock said through his teeth, not sitting up.

“How about you stay on then?” Rowan said to Sherlock. “You could stay at my place. Go to the British Museum tomorrow whilst I’m at work, and Saturday we’ll have another go at the shopping—I could do with a few things myself.”

Sherlock looked up, torn between continuing his sulk and tearing out of the restaurant to Rowan’s flat right then. “Will you take me to buy jeans?”

“You never even said you wanted jeans,” his mother said in exasperation. “Rowan, are you sure? That’s terribly kind of you, and you really needn’t bother about the shopping, you can see what it’s like.”

“No bother at all. We’ll have fun,” Rowan said, winking at Sherlock. Sherlock grinned before he could stop himself, sitting up straight in his chair without even noticing. He also didn’t notice the way Mycroft’s eyes narrowed at his enthusiasm. Three whole nights!

 

They did go shopping Saturday, at the loud crowded shops Rowan favored, where they could find jeans and t-shirts. In one shop Rowan slipped into the changing room behind Sherlock, pressing up against his back and sliding a hand into the front of his jeans. “These are too loose. You did that on purpose, didn’t you,” he breathed into Sherlock’s ear. “You wanted me to reach in. Feel how hard you are already, you little slut, look at yourself.”

Sherlock braced a hand on the mirror and looked. He was flushed, hair mussed from pulling shirts on and off, lips slightly swollen from his first attempts at oral sex.  He could see Rowan’s hand gripping his hip, other hand squeezing just out of sight. There wasn’t nearly enough room—the jeans weren’t _that_ loose—and Rowan’s fist could only work over the head of Sherlock’s cock, too hard and too tight. Rowan rocked his own hips into Sherlock’s arse and reached down to fondle his bollocks through the stiff fabric, which made Sherlock jerk forward into his fist. “Look at you gagging for it,” Rowan murmured. “Would you let just anybody in here, feel you up?”

Afterwards Rowan nodded at the wet spot on the front of the jeans and said, “Fold those so that doesn’t show and leave them. They don’t fit.”

The cocksucking lessons went brilliantly. Sherlock spent much of the weekend on his knees in front of the leather sofa, a folded towel cushioning the hard floor. With his exceptional powers of observation Sherlock could not fail to notice that Rowan enjoyed this much more than his hand; he, Sherlock, would therefore become a master at it, the best Rowan had ever had.

The first time Rowan came in his mouth Sherlock choked and gagged, turning his head to spit the slimy mess discreetly into his hand. He made to get up to go to the loo but Rowan caught him and pushed him back down. “Now get yourself off,” he said.

Sherlock was naked—they both were—and of course he was hard, but the order still caught him off guard. “What, with my hand?”

“With that,” Rowan said, nodding at the wet goop in Sherlock’s cupped hand.

Sherlock knew he’d gone scarlet but still…there was something about smearing Rowan’s come onto himself that excited him, and he knew it excited Rowan, so he did it. He knelt on the floor at Rowan’s feet and jerked himself off, head back and teeth gritted, coming all over the folded towel. Rowan watched him through half-closed eyes, lazily fondling his own soft cock. When Sherlock finished Rowan sat up and smeared the mess of their combined come over his half-hard cock and pushed it into Sherlock’s mouth again, although Sherlock was breathing too hard to suck. “That was hot,” he said, fondling Sherlock’s hair. “But next time you’ll swallow it.”

He did.

Rowan liked to put his palm on Sherlock’s throat and push all the way in, feeling the frantic flatter of muscles as Sherlock worked not to gag or panic. “Relax,” he would say, almost crooning, “relax, relax, you can take it,” and Sherlock tried. It didn’t come easily. When he got home, safe in the upstairs that was now entirely his now that Mycroft had moved out for good, he spent long nights practicing with the test tubes from his old chemistry set, masturbating as he slid the cold glass slowly down his throat. _Relax._ He got better at it.

It never occurred to Sherlock to wonder that Rowan never reciprocated. Rowan, after all, already knew how to give oral sex, right? He was doing Sherlock a favor, teaching him.

 

When they next went up to London Rowan was away for work, which was absolutely the most infuriating and unfair thing that had ever happened to Sherlock in his entire life, and then Rowan came down for Sunday dinner. This was, if possible, even more infuriating, as Sherlock spent the whole day in a desperate state of arousal whilst Rowan appeared perfectly calm, not even caring that Sherlock was mad to have his cock down his throat. At least Mycroft wasn’t there. The visit was not a total waste, however; somehow by the end it had been arranged that Sherlock would come up near the start of term to get his books.

Sherlock got off the train a little self-consciously, wearing a new t-shirt and jeans from their recent shopping expedition. (He might not have had the nerve if Mummy had taken him to the train, but he could have climbed into his father’s car starkers and his father would have said only, “Bit chilly today, isn’t it? Might want a jacket.”) Rowan was there, his brightness dimming all the ordinary people around him, as usual, but when he caught sight of Sherlock his eyes went dark and hot in a way that Sherlock had not seen before. “Look at you,” he said in a low growl, taking Sherlock by the belt loops and pulling him closer. “Look at this arse, _fuck.”_

Sherlock caught sight of a woman looking at hem over her shoulder, frowning a little. He knew what they must look like; there was a reason Rowan never touched him in public, not even in London, Rowan was so obviously an adult and Sherlock, in spite of his height, still looked like an overgrown twelve-year-old. “Let’s go to your flat,” he said, although just the touch of Rowan’s hands on his clothes was making him hot and dizzy.

“I can’t wait that long,” Rowan said. He gripped Sherlock’s arm and tugged him along the platform and into the toilets, dragging him along to the handicapped stall at the very end and ducking in after him. “Come on, I’ve got to have your mouth, right now.”

Sherlock stared. “Here?”

Rowan put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down, right onto the wet dirty floor, already unfastening his belt with his other hand. His cock was hard and red and Sherlock immediately stopped caring about anything else, grabbing the bar for balance whilst he took Rowan’s hip with the other. Rowan tangled a hand in his hair and pushed into his mouth. Sherlock breathed in through his nose and relaxed his throat, desperate to show off how good he could be at this, and Rowan groaned and began to fuck his throat in earnest.

Sherlock was bracing himself for a long haul—Rowan could go on for what seemed like hours, and Sherlock was already accepting the likelihood of sore knees, chapped lips, aching jaw—but the hours of practice paid off: in what seemed like practically no time Rowan was slamming into the back of Sherlock’s throat, making it clench reflexively. Rowan abruptly pulled out, in what Sherlock thought briefly was consideration for his spasming airway, but then he felt the first hot splash and understood that Rowan was coming on his face. This had not happened before, but Sherlock had gotten better at predicting what Rowan wanted: he opened his mouth to catch Rowan’s semen on his tongue and Rowan groaned and slid back in for the last few thrusts.

When he’d finally finished and was wiping himself off with the loo roll Sherlock pulled himself to his feet and realized that he had semen liberally spattered on his shirt and that his knees were soaked and filthy. Rowan laughed at seeing Sherlock’s expression. “God, look at you. Everyone’s going to know what you’ve been doing, won’t they? Imagine if brother Mycroft could see you now.”

Sherlock flushed. Aside from everything else, he was throbbing-hard in his tight jeans now and wished desperately that Rowan would tell him to get himself off, no matter how much of a mess he already was. “Here,” Rowan said, tossing him a wad. “Wipe down and let’s go back to the flat so I can take care of that for you.”

At Rowan’s flat Sherlock stripped off his ruined clothes and Rowan pulled him down on the bed, slotting himself behind him and reaching for a bottle of something Sherlock had not seen before. For a minute, watching Rowan squeeze clear goo into his palm, he thought it was hair gel. Rowan stroked the goo over Sherlock’s straining cock and Sherlock said involuntarily, “Oh my God.”

“Feel good?” Rowan said with that hint of a laugh in his voice. He slicked his own cock, behind Sherlock’s back where he couldn’t see, and then reached around to take hold of Sherlock again. “Poor little Sherlock, you’re ready to burst. You’ve just been dying for this, haven’t you? Have you been wanking all summer thinking about my hand? Or thinking about my cock in your mouth?”

“Ah,” gasped Sherlock, already delirious with sensation. Rowan’s cock was rubbing up between his arse cheeks, making him tingle in a new and not entirely pleasant way, half arousal, half nerves and fear. But his hand _—_ that slick sensation of Rowan teasing his cock, jerking him fast and then slowing just as he got close, maddeningly slow—he _was_ dying for it, oh God, he’d do anything if only Rowan would let him come—

“Sweet little thing,” Rowan said, almost kindly, and Sherlock’s mind whited out. He had never come so hard, and when he came back to himself Rowan’s arm was wrapped tightly around his waist, breath coming in hard little grunts in Sherlock’s ear as he rutted against him, and it felt almost as though Rowan were holding him. It felt almost like tenderness.

Rowan said nothing about his wrecked clothes. Sherlock rolled them up and hid them in the bottom of his knapsack. When he was home, late at night in the privacy of the bathroom that was now only his, he rinsed the clothing in the basin and hung them up in the bath, burying them in the bottom of the washing basket only when they were completely dry.

 

Now that precedent had been established, Sherlock’s visiting Rowan in London was apparently accepted as a matter of course. They still went out on Saturdays--the markets, or dumb touristy things like London Bridge—and Sherlock invented a friend with whom he allegedly took the train and occasionally met up, but surprisingly his parents really didn’t seem that interested. He felt vaguely insulted that they didn’t miss him more. Rowan traveled frequently for work, though, and Sherlock only managed to get there about two out of every three home weekends, and that was just not enough.

One Sunday in October Sherlock was strolling moodily back from chapel, paying absolutely no attention to his surroundings. His mind was on sex, as usual. Specifically, what he thought of to himself as real sex, or more often simply That. Rowan had no such linguistic scruples and lately he’d been pulling Sherlock’s bum flush against him and grinding his cock into it whilst breathing, “God, your arse, I can’t wait to fuck you,” into his ear. Sherlock, on the other hand, was not sure he wanted to do That.  Aside from anything else, there was the deeply-ingrained boy’s school taboo: a little mutual handjobbery was common and accepted, but letting someone fuck you in the arse—that was beyond the pale. Not that Sherlock was in the pale in any case. And the incest angle didn’t bother him: that was all down to genetics, a need to avoid the increased risk of recessive genes, which clearly wasn’t a factor here. Besides, Rowan didn’t _feel_ like his brother. Not in the way Mycroft did, as someone who was permanently if undesirably part of him. And the whole virginity fetish was even more ridiculous than it usually was: an untouched anus was hardly going to guarantee anyone’s paternity.

Sill…real sex seemed like a big deal to Sherlock, a big and possibly painful deal, and he just wasn’t sure.  But last home weekend, lying in bed, Rowan had put his mouth on Sherlock for the first time and while Sherlock was busy losing his mind Rowan had pushed a finger into his arse. It had felt shocking, and weird, and a bit gross. Sherlock didn’t like it. But Rowan had reached up and stroked his throat, the way he had when Sherlock was learning to take his cock there, and whispered, “Relax. Just like you did before. Okay?” and slipped his mouth over his cock again. So Sherlock had tried to relax, and concentrate on the sensation of Rowan’s mouth, and Rowan had pushed the finger in farther, slow and gentle, until he’d brushed a place that felt strange in whole new way. Sherlock had cried right out loud. Rowan had laughed around his cock and then he began to stroke there, pressing just a little, while he sucked on Sherlock and it was _amazing,_ the strangest and most bizarre sensation of his life, though he still wasn’t sure he liked it—he felt helpless to it, overwhelmed, and the orgasm was so sharp as to be almost painful.

So Sherlock was walking back from chapel with his head--more literally than is usually meant by the phrase--up his arse when the house master called to him.

“I’ve got a surprise for you, Sherlock,” the house master said, smiling at him. “Your brother’s here to take you to lunch.”

Mycroft? Oh God, had he somehow caught on, was he here to tell Sherlock his sins had been discovered and—Sherlock almost collapsed in relief when he saw the familiar figure in the house master’s study, which was not Mycroft but Rowan.

“What are you doing here?” he asked when they’d got safely off in Rowan’s new car. “I thought you were still abroad! Do Mummy and Father know?”

“Mum put me on your emergency contact list at the start of term,” Rowan said, grinning at him. “In case something happened and they were away or something. And I came back Friday, so I rang the house master and told him I’d be up this way with my girlfriend visiting her parents and we’d like to stop by on our way back and take you to lunch.”

“Girlfriend,” Sherlock said, laughing in sheer delight. “You’re lucky he didn’t ask to meet her. We’re not really going to lunch, are we?”

“Why, are you hungry?” Rowan asked, smirking at him. “Because I’ve got a lovely plump sausage for you to suck on…”

The carried on like that until Rowan pulled into the carpark of an anonymous motel and said, “Stay put, I’m going to pay.” Sherlock slid low in the seat, hoping belatedly that no one would recognize him, and waited on tenterhooks until Rowan returned and said in a satisfied way, “We’re round the back.”

Sherlock might have gotten a case of nerves in a cheap motel room—or he might not—but there was no time for that; they had to be back in a reasonable time frame for having eaten Sunday lunch. In record time he had shucked his uniform and was slurping away on Rowan’s sausage, making ridiculous noises as though enjoying the most delicious meal of his life until Rowan was groaning and pumping away in earnest. Then, just as Sherlock was reaching for himself—Rowan liked for him to get off whilst sucking him, and it seemed the most efficient use of time—Rowan suddenly pulled out and hauled Sherlock up on the bed. He leaned over to his coat and pulled out the bottle of lube. “Come here,” he said.

Rowan’s slick hands guided Sherlock’s to his own cock, then began caressing Sherlock’s. It felt fantastic, as it always did, and every time Rowan’s fingers brushed over his entrance Sherlock felt his legs spreading a little wider until finally he heard himself saying, “Do it, please. Put your finger in me again.”

“Sure?” Rowan purred.

“ _Yes.”_

It was better this time, maybe because he knew what to expect, and he knew to press back against the pressure. Rowan slid his slick fist over Sherlock’s cock with every push of his fingers and when he pressed against that vulnerable spot again Sherlock bucked and arched. He had long since let go of Rowan. Rowan slid his finger back and Sherlock pleaded, “More. Do it again.”

Rowan laughed and then there was a burning and more pressure and Sherlock realized he was pushing two fingers in this time. The sensation jolted through him again, stronger, and his cock was throbbing in Rowan’s hand, so close. Rowan tightened his grip around the base of Sherlock’s cock, squeezing so he couldn’t come, and began to push his fingers in and out, striking a glancing touch to Sherlock’s prostate ever time so that the pain and pleasure alternated, pleasure growing stronger and stronger all the while that tight grip kept him from reaching it. “God,” Sherlock moaned, completely out of his head, “do it, fuck me, please, please, no don’t, more fingers, I have to…”

Rowan laughed again, low. “Now what’s the difference in my fingers and my dick?” he said, pushing in and twisting his fingers in a way that made Sherlock thrash desperately under his hands. “And my dick is going to feel….so….good.” He thrust in again and released his grip, pumping his slick fist down over Sherlock’s purple cock, which went off like a firecracker.

Sherlock was still shaking when Rowan pulled his fingers out, wiped them on the duvet, and knelt up. He straddled Sherlock’s hips and pulled his head up until he could push his cock into his mouth, holding Sherlock’s head still while he fucked his face as Sherlock’s overstimulated body shook beneath him. It wasn’t Sherlock’s best performance. When Sherlock had dutifully swallowed Rowan’s come and been dropped back onto the bed, Rowan reached down, cupped a hand over him, and whispered, “You’re going to be the most _amazing_ fuck.”

 

Now that he’d agreed to do it— _had_ he agreed? He wasn’t sure that he had, but he could hardly back out now—Sherlock found himself fantasizing about it constantly. In his imagination he was facing Rowan the way he’d been at the motel, both of Rowan’s hands stroking him as Rowan moved inside him, pleasuring that exquisitely sensitive spot at the same time. Had he seriously just thought the word _pleasuring?_

Sometimes Sherlock couldn’t keep his daydreams from going further. Real sex meant something, didn’t it? So everything he had been taught had led Sherlock to believe. If they did That, it would mean…what would it mean? Sherlock wasn’t sure. Rowan was affectionate toward him, but in a big-brother, hair-tousling sort of way. He didn’t kiss Sherlock or hug him or whisper sweet nothings as they embraced. But if they had intercourse…deep down where he barely admitted it even to himself Sherlock knew that he wanted those things. He wanted them very much. And sometimes when he fantasized about Rowan making love to him (oh God, there he went again) he couldn’t help imagining Rowan whispering, “You’re amazing, you’re fantastic, I lo—“ Sherlock buried his hot face in his arms.

 

It didn’t go like that.

In spite of the fingering beforehand and the two drinks he’d had it hurt, quite a lot, and there was some bleeding that Sherlock didn’t know about until after. He was glad after all that Rowan had positioned him on elbows and knees, because at least that way he could press his clenched face in the bedclothes and not worry about Rowan seeing. There was no _pleasuring._ Instead there was what felt like hours of Rowan groaning behind him, dripping sweat onto Sherlock’s back, pounding away at Sherlock’s raw backside. “Touch yourself, I want to feel you come,” Rowan panted, thrusting harder with enthusiasm at this thought. Sherlock obediently braced his weight on his left arm and worked his hand down, but he knew it was hopeless; he was soft and wilted with discomfort and disappointment. Rowan didn’t seem to notice. He’d said “God, you’re so tight,” and “God, your arse,” and that had been the extent of the sweet talk, but he was clearly enjoying himself hugely, and Sherlock told himself that was the important thing.

Finally, finally Rowan’s banging became faster and more erratic and he shoved into Sherlock in one final, spine-splitting thrust. Sherlock bit down on the duvet to keep from crying out and Rowan took a few final shoves for good measure and then stilled. Sherlock exhaled in relief—finally it was over—and then Rowan pulled out, which, impossibly, hurt more than it had going in.

Sherlock curled over his knees, knowing his arse was still on display but not wanting to expose his face just yet. Rowan reached out and jiggled his buttocks, apparently for the purpose of encouraging the slow trickle of fluid from Sherlock’s anus, and whistled. “ _That’s_ a hell of a mess,” he said, almost admiringly, and got up to fetch a towel.

Sherlock rolled onto his side in a fetal position. Rowan returned, whistling, and wiped away the mess on the sheet and gave Sherlock’s arse a quick swipe, not ungently. He nodded at Sherlock’s soft cock. “Yeah, that can happen the first time. Want me to see if I can make you feel better, or are you too knackered?”

For the first time in recent memory Sherlock had no interest in getting off. “Too knackered.”

“Okay then.” Rowan gave him a single pat on the hip and turned away. “I’m a bit peckish, might have some crisps and watch the telly. Come on out if you change your mind.”

Left alone, Sherlock turned his face into the duvet and closed his eyes. He felt…nothing. Not sad, not disappointed, only a bleak desolate emptiness that settled over him like fog.

 

It will be better next time, Sherlock told himself. I’ll be better. Just like with the blow jobs. And to his own surprise, it did get better. The second time was not so bad, although he didn’t remember much about it—he’d let Rowan talk him into an Ecstasy tablet first. The third time he was able to come when Rowan stroked him afterward, and a few times after that he managed to get himself off with Rowan still inside him. He even grew to enjoy it, since it was easier to delay orgasm until Rowan was getting close, and sometimes Rowan draped himself over Sherlock’s back and wrapped an arm around his waist and it felt like an embrace, being held like that. When it was over, though, Rowan always left: to the bath, the kitchen, the sofa, leaving Sherlock alone with that gnawing feeling of emptiness.

Still: Sherlock was a teenager with limitless sexual enthusiasm, and as soon as the sex got good he was slobbering for more. One home weekend when Sherlock’s parents were away Rowan rang the house master and told him Sherlock had got food poisoning off some dicey takeaway and he stayed at the flat until Wednesday, the two of them shagging like rabbits every minute Rowan wasn’t at work. One Sunday they didn’t even make it to the motel; Rowan pulled off onto a gravelly side road and opened his trousers, Sherlock sucking him off with his body contorted awkwardly between the seats.

At the motel, all the other boys at Sunday dinner: Sherlock lay flat on his back with his arse off the edge of the bed, Rowan holding him up by the thighs as he fucked him standing, knocking Sherlock back and forth along the cheap counterpane. Sherlock was still in his shirt and tie—“I want to see you come on your pretty uniform,” Rowan had said, a dark gleam in his eyes—and sweat was collecting under his back, making his shirt stick and scrape. He didn’t want to come on his clothes, of course, and he tried to gather his shirttails up with his free hand, but this angle felt good in a way sex had never felt good before; every thrust seemed to spark pleasure from his body like a flint. He felt he had been teetering at the knife edge of orgasm forever, almost too much, and though he never made noise during sex Sherlock was moaning now. He clutched at the slick fabric under his hand to keep from sliding and let go his shirt—he _had_ to touch himself now, he couldn’t stop himself—and tipped over into an orgasm so intense and prolonged he thought he might have blacked out.

Later, standing at the basin under the bad fluorescent lighting and scrubbing at his shirtfront with a cheap flannel, Sherlock glanced up and caught Rowan’s eye in the spotty mirror. He thought he saw a glitter of dark satisfaction on Rowan’s face, but then he grinned and Sherlock dismissed it as a trick of the light.

Rowan took in Sherlock: hair wrecked, shirt crumpled and wet down the front, reeking of sex. He laughed and squeezed Sherlock’s arse through his trousers. “Tell them you spilled your drink.”

 

It was about that time that the rumors started.

 

Sherlock never knew what set them off. It might have been the two days he stayed away, or maybe somebody saw him one in the car, or the mess of his shirt. Or perhaps somebody saw something at the health talk. An NHS nurse had come to speak to the boys about AIDS, demonstrating a condom with bored unflappability whilst the boys hooted and giggled. It didn’t matter for them, after all; they were safe, it was only poofs who need be scared, right?

For the first time Sherlock felt a trickle of unease. Surely he had nothing to worry about; Rowan was an adult and adults were responsible, so of course he’d used condoms before Sherlock. Rowan had known he was clean and Sherlock was a virgin, so they weren’t needed, of course not.  He set his face into a mask of disinterest and slouched down in his chair. It was too late: someone must have seen something on his face that gave him away.

The whispers started soon after that. _Queer,_ they hissed; _cocksucker, he’ll bend over for anyone. I heard he let the fencing master have him in the equipment room. I heard he fucked him with the foil._

“I don’t think we should do this anymore,” Sherlock said in the car when Rowan picked him up for lunch that Sunday. “I’ve exams soon, I need to study.”

Rowan reached over with one hand and ran a hand up Sherlock’s leg to cup his cock, already hard in his school trousers. “You can’t hold out until Christmas, can you? And you know what this pretty little schoolboy uniform does to me.”

Two days later Sherlock was in the chemistry lab when he heard the whispers behind him. He was beginning to think he could pinpoint when they were talking about him by sound alone, a kind of extra-malicious hissing. _I heard he did it with a whole lot of sixth formers, I heard they took him two at a time, I heard they passed him around like a bag of crisps._

_I can smell it on him. He smells like come._

_You should know, it’s your come._

A burst of muffled laughter. Sherlock, hands cold and face burning, stood and walked over to the bench where the chemicals were kept. He deliberately bumped a full flask so that it tipped and crashed onto the bench, spattering the floor and his clothing liberally with acid. 

In the infirmary shower Sherlock stood under the spray for the prescribed twenty minutes, scrubbing himself viciously with the cheap school soap. He washed everywhere, even the pink splotchy places where the acid had burned his skin, and then scoured his arse so hard it began to bleed again. He rubbed the soap until he had a handful of lather and pushed it up as best he could, bending over in a futile attempt to get the water in.

“That’s you done, Holmes,” the matron called. “Come out and let me see now.”

Towel around his hips, Sherlock stood with his head low, hoping she could not see his shame. The matron studied the teardrops of pink burn marks and said, “They won’t scar. I’ll get some salve and send someone to fetch some more clothes.”

When the bundle of clothing arrived Sherlock unfolded the trousers and shirt to find a pair of his pants, a large hole cut out the back. Rowan would think this was funny, Sherlock thought. He tried to find it funny. He couldn’t. He wanted to get back into the shower and stay there until he gradually dissolved down the drain.

 

Sherlock was too young and inexperienced to understand the source of his shame, the lance of unwitting truth in their words. It wasn’t that he’d had sex with another man and loved it. It was that he’d sold himself cheap.

 

End of term finally came. A few months earlier Sherlock would have angled to go to London for a few days, perhaps on the pretext of doing some Christmas shopping, but Rowan was away on business and Sherlock was a little surprised to realize that this disappointment did not crush him. He just wanted to go home. He was beginning to suspect, deep down in an unacknowledged, uncomfortable way, that he was growing tired of Rowan. Rowan’s cheerful brashness had started to seem more grating than charming and there were weekends that Sherlock found himself wishing he were at home, listening to his own music instead of Echo and the Bunnymen.

Of course, by the time Christmas Eve rolled around, Sherlock was violently wishing himself in London. Mycroft had arrived the previous day and was already driving Sherlock mad, interrogating Sherlock as to why his marks had slipped last term and generally making himself a nosy nuisance. When Rowan arrived on Christmas Day, arms piled with professionally wrapped gifts, he seemed more than ever like a breath of fresh air.

“Can I lend a hand in the kitchen?” Rowan asked when they’d dispensed with the pleasantries of drinks and catching up. “I’m quite a chef. I’ve bought a frypan of my own now, did I tell you? I can fry eggs.”

 “That’s terribly kind of you, dear, but I’m fine. It just all needs to fit in the oven now,” Mummy answered, gathering glasses. “Have a rest, I know you’ve been working hard.”

“Actually, I fancy a bit of a walk,” Rowan said, standing and stretching as though to ease the kinks of driving out of his back. “Care to come along, Sherlock? I might get lost else.”

“Perhaps I’ll join you as well,” Mycroft said, getting to his feet.

“ _You_ weren’t invited,” Sherlock snapped, and banged his way out the door before one of his parents could scold him. The fresh air did feel good, blowing away the little squirm of guilt he felt.

For once it was a relief that Rowan chattered away without pausing to ask Sherlock how his exams had gone, or how things were going at school, or if he had given any thought to what exactly he was going to do with his life besides lying around damaging his hearing with that cacophonous music. Instead he told Sherlock about a Christmas party he’d been to, where a girl of his acquaintance who had apparently fancied him for some time had made a suggestive offer by the drinks table, in spite of her boyfriend’s presence a few feet away.

“So I told her, ‘Sorry love, I think you’ve misunderstood the object of my interest, but as it sounds like your boyfriend might be available, can I have _his_ number?’”

Sherlock couldn’t help laughing, though it always stung a little when Rowan talked like this. “Are you going to tell that one to Mummy?”

“Not unless she starts hinting for grandchildren,” Rowan said, grinning. “Speaking of Mum…” he paused and looked back to be sure they were out of sight and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Want one?”

Sherlock took it. “She’s going to smell it on us, you realize.”

Rowan hunched against the wind to light his cigarette and leaned over to light Sherlock’s. “Of course she is. And then she’ll think she knows why you look so guilty and she’ll stop wondering.”

“I don’t look guilty,” Sherlock said automatically.

Rowan grinned at him again. “Not yet. Come on.” He jerked his head. “Mum said those people are away and that means no one’s going to be nosing around that potting shed, are they?”

The potting shed had once been a chicken coop and still had old angled windows over the bench, looking out the way they had come. Rowan maneuvered Sherlock around to the bench and turned him so he was facing out, pulling him back by the hips so that his arse was pressed against Rowan’s groin. “Oh, much better,” Rowan sighed, grinding. Sherlock, who was half aroused all the time these days anyway, immediately felt himself harden. “That wind is fucking freezing, and watching you wriggle your tail in there was driving me mental.” He slid one hand around and fondled Sherlock through his trousers. “God, you’re ready to burst. Poor baby, hasn’t anyone been taking care of you whilst I’ve been away?”

“Unh,” Sherlock mumbled, pushing into Rowan’s hand. Rowan chuckled, pulled off his gloves, and made quick work of unfastening Sherlock’s trousers.

“Lick,” he said, bringing a palm up, “and keep watch out the windows, I wouldn’t put it past your brother to come after us.”

Sherlock groaned as Rowan wrapped a hand around his cock. “He won’t, he’s too lazy— _Christ._ Oh please, like that. Don’t stop.”

Rowan fumbled behind him, unfastening his own trousers, and brought his other hand up for Sherlock to lick. He wedged his cock between Sherlock’s buttocks and pinned Sherlock to him with one hand as he stroked Sherlock with the other. Sherlock felt his toes curl and pushed into the rising friction, the cold air chilling his bare hips but his groin and buttocks gloriously warm. He was getting close. “Keep your eyes open,” Rowan rasped. “This _arse_ , you make me crazy, I want to be inside it like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Do it,” Sherlock said, reckless with lust and frustration. “Put it in me, fuck me right here.”

“Not enough time.” Rowan thrust against him and Sherlock braced his forearms on the potting bench, digging his gloved fingers into the old wood. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open, heat rising in his thighs and making them tremble. “You know what I’d really like to do? I’d like to fuck you on Mycroft’s bed so when he got in there he’d smell it and know I made you come—“

The shock of it jolted through Sherlock’s groin and without warning he was coming, clutching the bench and jerking forward as wet warmth shot through Rowan’s fingers and dribbled onto the old wooden floor. Rowan took a step back, wiped his sticky hand on his own cock, and then pushed Sherlock’s legs together and began to thrust shallowly between his thighs. “Just—like—this—“ Rowan grunted, hips striking Sherlock’s in time with his words. “I’d fuck you, just like this, fuck your arse, make you come, come so hard—“ he let go of Sherlock and pumped into his hand, finishing so that his own come landed on the floor next to Sherlock’s.

After Sherlock’s handkerchief had been used to clean both of them he held it up in mock distaste and then tossed it onto the floor with the rest of this mess. “I have officially dropped this on our walk,” he announced.

“Good idea. I’ll get you a new one for your birthday.”

“Oh, was that my Christmas gift just now?”

Rowan laughed. “I got you something with a bow on it, don’t worry. And it’s not my dick, even though I know that’s what you really want.” He draped an arm over Sherlock’s shoulder and squeezed. “Let’s get back before they send out Mycroft.”

It was the closest thing to a hug he’d ever had. To Sherlock it felt like the most wonderful gift of all.

 

Mummy was so distracted when they returned she didn’t even mention the smoking, although Sherlock saw Mycroft sniffing rather pointedly in his direction. He held his tongue, though, and dinner went off rather well, as did the exchange of gifts after. Rowan had given Sherlock a pile of new CDs and he pretended to be delighted, even though he was losing interest in the noisy bands Rowan preferred.

Mycroft gave Sherlock a pile of board games.

“I’d thought we could play this evening the way we used to,” he explained, flushing a little, when Sherlock stared at him, “but Mummy said we’d lost most of the pieces. And I know you’ve never much taken to chess but there’s a club at school…” Mycroft trailed off.

“Thank you,” Sherlock said quietly. Mycroft’s words had brought back the days when he had loved playing with Mycroft, the days when Mycroft had been his whole world. Not that he had any plans to join the chess club. Mycroft had been school champion, which was precisely why Sherlock had never joined.

“I’d best get on the road,” Rowan said, looking out. “Looks like rain coming, and these bloody county roads are murder when they’re wet.”

“Might want to stay,” Sherlock’s father offered. “You could go back Boxing Day, we’ve a spare room and I’m sure it’s no trouble.”

“Of course it isn’t!” Mummy said. “Stay until tomorrow. You don’t want to drive back Christmas night, especially if the weather’s bad.”

Rowan demurred initially but finally agreed, settling back in front of the fire with a fresh cup of punch as though he had been offered the greatest possible treat. They ended up playing Chinese Checkers, which Rowan initially seemed to be winning—twitting Mycroft so subtly Sherlock knew his parents did not even notice—but Mycroft, being Mycroft, sprang a trap at the end and beat him.

The dark flash in Rowan’s eyes was gone so quickly that Sherlock would have thought he’d imagined it had he not seen it on other occasions. He looked away. “Well done, mate!” Rowan was now bellowing genially, slapping Mycroft’s shoulder. “Didn’t see that coming! You’ll have to buy me a drink when we’re back in London.”

“I look forward to it,” Mycroft said with what Sherlock knew to be his most insincere smile.

Sherlock had had enough. “I’m going to bed,” he said abruptly, pushing back from the table and leaving his uneaten plate of Christmas cake for someone else to clear away. Nobody took any notice of him. He filched Mycroft’s glass of whisky and slunk moodily upstairs to his room.

Of course, once he was in bed, Sherlock found himself wide awake despite the whisky. He lay in bed, staring into the dark and listening to the house settling around him, restless and twitchy. The thought of Rowan just on the other side of the wall made him feel strange and prickly, aroused and anxious at the same time. He thought of Rowan saying he’d like to fuck Sherlock on Mycroft’s bed and rolled over to groan into his pillow. _Mycroft,_ who scolded Sherlock about school and gave him baby games for Christmas. His whole bloody family who treated him like a baby and wouldn’t let him have any punch even though he’d be fifteen in two weeks and loads of other boys drank, or they said they did, and he’d had beer and whisky and even X at Rowan’s, _and_ he’d had sex, not the silly schoolboy snogging Mycroft had probably tried but real grownup sex…he _wasn’t_ a baby. He was old enough to make his own decisions.

Sherlock got up and padded noiselessly to the door, peering out into the silent corridor. Nothing. Mycroft’s door across the corridor was closed, the soft drone of his snores faintly audible. Rowan’s room was the twin to Sherlock’s, overlooking the back garden. No sound came from the closed door. Sherlock slid carefully along the wall—years of experience had made him an expert on the corridor’s noisy spots—turned the handle, and slipped inside.

 

Ordinarily Sherlock would sleep until his mother dragged him out of bed, but next morning he found himself jolted awake by a strange sound. He lay still for a moment, listening. Raised voices. What was going on? Raised voices occurred in the Holmes house only when Sherlock was involved. He slid out of bed and padded to the door, too curious to stop for slippers and dressing gown, though his pyjamas were too short and his feet and ankles were cold. Just as he had the previous night, he slid along the wall and crept down the stairs.

“—just a bit of a crush,” Mummy was saying dismissively. “I’m sure it’s nothing, Mycoft, you’re just blowing things out of proportion—“

“He had him last night,” Mycroft said in a tightly furious voice. “ _Last night._ In this house. I heard them.”

Sherlock went cold all over.

Rowan’s laugh sounded nothing like it usually did. There was no booming warmth; it was a cruel, gloating sound. “Did you enjoy that, Mike? Bet you listened to every minute, didn’t you? I’ll wager it’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to having someone yourself. Did you go back to your room and—“

“Stop it, both of you,” Mummy said angrily. “What are you saying?’

“Do you know what he’s been doing?” Mycroft’s voice was rising. “All term? He’s been fetching Sherlock from school and taking him away. For lunch, supposedly. I spoke to the house master this morning.”

“Maybe he’s taking him to lunch! I know you and Sherlock used to be close, Mycroft, but there’s no need to be—“

“Nope,” Rowan said. “I’ve been taking him to the Travelodge and fucking him.”

A deathly silence fell. Sherlock was not breathing. He could no longer feel his hands or feet.

“Charlie,” Mummy whispered.

“How long has this been going on?” Sherlock’s father asked, a hardness in his voice Sherlock had never heard.

“Since last spring,” Rowan answered. “He was gagging for it. He’s a right little slag, did you know? Forgot to mention it was him came to my room last night, didn’t you, Mikey? Oh, don’t tell me you’re surprised. Comes by it naturally, I suppose, with his Mummy a whore who ran off with another man—“

A chair screeched in the kitchen. “That’s _enough_ ,” Mycroft was saying with cold fury over their mother’s shocked gasp, their father saying in a voice in which there was, incredibly a trace of compassion; “Rowan, that’s not true. Is that what your father told you? Because you deserve to know the truth.”

“Is that why you did this?” Mummy’s voice was shaking.

“Well, it was rather satisfying,” Rowan said thoughtfully. “To show you that the perfect little dollhouse family you chucked me for wasn’t so perfect after all. But really? I did it because he was a sweet piece of arse.”

Sherlock sat down. He did not realize his legs would no longer hold him until it happened.

There was a scraping sound. “I’m calling the police,” Mycroft said icily. “Statutory rape is a crime, and no matter what you say—“

“Sure you want to do that? They’ll talk to his school, you know. He’s already got quite the reputation there.”

The compassion was going from his father’s voice now. “Get out. Now. Leave this house and do not come back. You will not contact Sherlock again. You will not go to his school again. If your mother wants to speak to you, she’ll be in touch. Now get out.”

“All right,” Rowan said, as cheerily as if they’d all enjoyed a pleasant brunch. “See you around London, Mikey. You still owe me that drink, don’t forget!”

“I won’t forget what I owe you,” Mycroft said in a tone that sent a chill down Sherlock’s already-frozen spine.

Footsteps came toward the foyer and Sherlock realized that Rowan was about to walk right past him. He had a desperate urge to bolt, but a small childish part of him still harbored a pathetic hope that Rowan would hold out his hand and say in a whisper: “It was all a lie, I love you, come on and run away with me—“

Rowan strode out at the base of the stairs. He glanced up and saw Sherlock and Sherlock saw him. He saw the smile on Rowan’s face, the smile that had nothing of love in it and only a cold and empty satisfaction, and he knew that no matter how much he might lie to himself now and in the past and in the future, he was seeing Rowan’s true face.

Rowan gave him a little two fingered wave and blew a kiss, and then he walked out the front door. Sherlock never saw him again.

 

The fallout was long and brutal, and some things were never the same.

 

Mycroft wanted to ring the police. He argued for this vehemently, but Mummy was equally adamant: there was Sherlock’s privacy to consider, the fallout if word was to get out, the inevitable gossip at school. It became apparent to everyone that this was not her only reason for objecting. Having learned of her oldest son’s perceived abandonment, she could not bring himself to betray him yet again.

Father was inclined to support Mycroft. “What if he does this to some other boy?”

Mycroft turned on their father in a rare burst of anger. “I don’t give a damn about some other boy! And I certainly don’t give a damn about Rowan’s _feelings_. This is about what he did to Sherlock!”

Sherlock felt a wave of gratitude so intense he was afraid he might cry, so of course he lashed out. “This is about you beating Rowan,” he said, voice too loud and shaking. “He didn’t _do_ anything to me; everything was fine until you stuck your fat nose in. And if you take me to the police I won’t talk, not a single word, not ever, and if they talk to my school I will never forgive you, never, never.” His voice was shaking harder, his throat was closing, he had to get away from all their eyes: the horror and revulsion were flaying him alive. “I hate you!” he shouted and flung himself out.

Halfway up the stairs he stopped, pausing to mop at his eyes, which had begun streaming uncontrollably. Which was why he was still within earshot when Mycroft, clearly believing him to have gone all the way to his room, said in a low icy whisper, “And what if he gave Sherlock AIDS? Have you thought of that?”

For the second time that day Sherlock’s knees gave way. He sank to the steps and buried his face in his hands.

 

It was his father who managed to convince Sherlock to get tested. He achieved this by dint of his utter conviction that the test would be negative, and therefore there was nothing at all to worry about.

“That boy was healthy, anyone could see that,” he said gently into the angry gloom of Sherlock’s room. (When necessary, over the next few weeks, Father would always refer to Rowan as “the boy”, as though to minimize the age difference and thereby the awfulness of the situation. After that, no one in the family ever mentioned him again.) “But your mother’s that upset, and it would be good to set her mind at ease, if you could.”

Sherlock looked at his father’s reassuringly confident face. He still believed, touchingly, that his father knew everything, or he wanted to believe it, and so he let himself be led to the car.

When the needle went into his arm Sherlock had a moment of pure existential terror— _what if it’s not—_ but then he glanced up at his father with wide scared eyes and saw his father’s certainty in his calm smile, and knew he was safe. Twenty years later Sherlock would stand by the side of a pool with a gun, a bomb, a madman, and John Watson, and feel that flash of terror again before again he was rescued by John Watson’s steady eyes. An instant of déjà vu, gone before he could examine it.

 

The test was negative. The whole family seemed to release a collective exhale, and the sense settled over them that it was time to put it behind them and move on. Sherlock’s father tentatively broached therapy, but Sherlock was incredulous: “What, at school? Are you joking?” and so the subject was dropped.

Sherlock went back to school, leaving his CDs in a pile on a shelf. He took his Smiths poster down and crumpled it in the rubbish bin. He did keep the Discman though; Mycroft had given him a collection of violin concertos on his bitterly tense fifteenth birthday and he listened to them obsessively the rest of the year, using the earphones to block out everyone around him. That was the year he got serious about the violin. Eventually, of course, the rumor mill moved on to someone else, and Sherlock was forgotten.

 

Four years after what Mycroft would always think of privately as the Boxing Day Massacre he was up for a very large promotion. His supervisor called him into his office and said gravely, “I’m afraid there’s something come up on the deep background check, Mr. Holmes. We have some concerns about your half-brother.”

“You needn’t,” Mycroft said calmly. “We’re estranged.”

“He might be a vulnerability…”

“He won’t.” Mycroft held out his hand. “Give me six months. And his file.”

The file on Charles Rowan Vernet Sherrinford—Sherlock might have been surprised to learn that Mycroft too resented that only Rowan had got their mother’s name—was not thick. What concerned Mycroft’s superiors was his habit of extending business trips to Asia for a few days’ detour to Thailand, where a credit card search showed that he frequented brothels known to offer young boys. Mycroft picked up the phone and had a cordial conversation with an acquaintance in Bangkok. Nine weeks later Rowan was arrested in Thailand with a large amount of drugs, which had been secreted in a false bottom in his suitcase. Rowan protested his ignorance of the secret compartment and demanded assistance from the British Ambassador, who rang Mycroft.

“Let him hang,” Mycroft said.

It didn’t come to that. After three weeks in prison, Rowan was found dead under somewhat murky circumstances. Mycroft let official channels take care of notifying his mother. He never mentioned to anyone that he had been assured that Rowan had not enjoyed his time in prison, particularly the period in which he had gained a new perspective on the experience of intercourse with a much larger man. Rowan’s father collected the body. No one from the Holmes family attended the funeral.

 

Mycroft truly believed he never spoke to anyone about what became of Rowan, and with one exception he never did. On a cold black night a few years later Mycroft lifted his baby brother’s weightless body from a filthy mattress and carried him outside to the street. Waiting on the kerb for the ambulance, he distracted himself from his own terror by whispering the whole story: _he’s gone, he can’t hurt you, I made certain that he suffered, he is dust and ashes and you are alive, alive, stay with me._ He never knew Sherlock heard him.

 

Mycroft never really forgave their mother for not putting Sherlock above everything else. A small, hidden part of Sherlock was secretly grateful to Mycroft for holding this grudge, since it meant he didn’t have to.

 

It would be an exaggeration to say that Sherlock never forgave Mycroft for ruining his life…but not by much.

 

Christmas, of course, was never the same again.

 

As for Sherlock: he made it out of school alive (barely) and went on to university. He would never again wear jeans, or band T-shirts, or try to be anyone but who he was, but he thought he might give the relationship thing another go. He went to some parties and hated them. Reviewing his prior experience, he took Ecstasy and went to some more parties, and things went rather better. Then he tried cocaine and things went better still. He pulled a few people; he sucked some of their cocks, and let some of them fuck him. They always left after. No one held him or kissed him; no one told him he was special or loved. He felt the emptiness again every time, and the shame.

_I can smell it on him._

The revulsion in his family’s eyes.

It wasn’t worth it. He was building his mind palace by then, so he packed it all away into a box and locked it in a vault.

Still, the experiment wasn’t a total loss, as he’d learned one useful thing: drugs made life much better.

 

 

“And the rest you know. Or you can work it out. I never touched another person after that, and no one ever touched me. Not until the day you kissed me.”

The room was almost completely dark. The only light came from the dim glow of the dying fire. John could barely see Sherlock, who had told his story in a flat, quiet tone whilst staring unseeing into the fire, and who now had simply stopped. He seemed to John like a car that had run out of petrol in the middle of the road.

John took a deep breath and let it out carefully through his nose. He wanted to go to Sherlock, but he needed to get his emotions under control first. The foremost of these was anger, obviously, and that wouldn’t help Sherlock now. When he felt confident he could speak without yelling he stood and crossed the few feet to Sherlock’s chair. He put his arms around Sherlock and pulled him to his chest.

Sherlock went limply, unresisting, his head resting heavily against John as though he were too exhausted to hold it up. “Sherlock, listen to me,” John said gently, stroking his hair with one hand. “You are the most fantastic, amazing, brilliant person I have ever met, and I love you more than any human being has loved another human being in the whole history of recorded time. I _adore_ you. Do you understand me?”

Sherlock nodded once, but his arms came up around John’s waist.

“Okay. Good. Because I need you to do something now.”

Sherlock sagged a little, but he leaned back to look up at John. “What.”

“I need you to let go of this idea that you have anything, _anything,_ to be ashamed about. Not in your history, not in your sexuality, _nothing._ Your parents weren’t revolted by you--they were horrified by what had been done to you; I know your parents, I _know_ that. You were young, and you fell for a handsome charmer who turned out to be a dick. Probably because his dad was a lying shithole who fucked him up, but let’s not make excuses. It happens all the time, because your brother was absolutely right: charismatic people are selfish people. That’s all it was.” Sherlock was staring at John in the way he did when John had just said something that was somehow simultaneously both illuminating and unimaginably stupid, so John said a little worriedly, “Is this making sense at all?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, sounding almost dazed. “ _Yes._ I thought…well, I didn’t think about it all, not consciously, but I always thought…I thought I was tainted. When Moriarty, and then Magnussen—“a fine shiver ran under John’s fingertips “—I thought they knew. I thought they could smell it on me. That I was less than worthless, fit only for…for people like them.”

 _Magnussen?_ John thought, the fine hairs on the back of his neck standing up. What had that bastard done, what had he said—but he knew, looking at Sherlock’s clear astonished eyes, that whatever had happened was unimportant. He pushed the question aside for now.

“Well, you were wrong. You are worth _everything._ And you’re not a, a monster magnet. You’re a magnet for ex-army doctors with illegal firearms and excellent taste in jumpers.”

“That would be…good,” Sherlock said. He still looked a little punch-drunk.

“Sherlock? One more thing? I understand why you wouldn’t want to go to therapy when you were a kid, I’d have been the same, but now that I’ve grown up and I’ve actually—“

“I don’t need therapy, I have you,” Sherlock said. He had laid his head against John’s jumper again and the words came out a bit muffled.

“Of course you do, always, but—“

“No, stop. Stop,” Sherlock said suddenly, leaning out again. His face was haggard but determined, his eyes steady on John’s. “I said that wrong. Let me start over, please. When I decided to stop using drugs, three hundred and forty-nine days ago, I did it because you kissed me. Not as some sort of bargain—I didn’t think if I got clean I could have this, because I never dreamed I could have this—but because on some level I believed that if you saw that in me, something worthy of kissing, then perhaps there was something there. You were the catalyst, do you see? You were the thing that made me believe that I was better than the drugs. Even you hitting me helped—not that I’m asking you to make a habit of it, but the fact that you believed I was worth fighting for, even if I was the one you were fighting…and the longer I stayed clean, the more I believed it. And when you told me I deserved better, I believed you.  It was that which made me strong enough to tell you to leave that night.”

John dropped to a crouch so their eyes were on a level. “You were right to do that,” he said fiercely. “You were absolutely right. You should have done it sooner.”

“No, _listen._ Because I’d done with being used to hurt someone else, though I couldn’t have put it to myself that baldly at the time. I’d done being a pawn in someone else’s twisted game.” His mouth unexpectedly twitched, rueful and wryly humorous. “Even Irene Adler had to sleep in my bed, do you remember?”

“I remember,” John said. His voice cracked a little.

“Moriarty as well,” Sherlock said meditatively. “At least Magnussen only pissed in the fireplace.”

“Sherlock, I am so sorry, for everything—“

“Shut _up,_ you’re missing the point,” Sherlock said impatiently. “I did all that on my own, with you as the catalyst. Even though I’m still not certain I would want to live without you, I know that I could. This is as good as I’m going to get, do you see? I don’t need a therapist. But I do need you.”

“You’ve never _needed_ me, not really. You’re amazing and fantastic all on your own, and I’m so honoured that you let me be a part of it.”

Sherlock laid his head against John’s shoulder. “You’re wrong. I will always need you.”

John heard the exhaustion in his voice. Part of him wanted to keep talking, to work through his own rage and sorrow and guilt, but he sensed Sherlock shutting down. Too much for one night. He needed to sleep, safe in his own bed with John’s arms around him. “Bed?”

“Bed.”

In the room that was now theirs, Sherlock laid his head on John’s shoulder and was asleep at once, like a small child who had cried himself out. John knew he himself would not sleep. In spite of his reassuring words to Sherlock he privately thought Rowan Sherrinford had been every inch a monster, and it was killing him that Mycroft had got to him first. He cradled Sherlock’s shoulders and stroked his soft curls, thinking of the picture he had seen at Sherlock’s parent’s house last summer: a boy with wild hair, his long legs folded under him like a fawn as he rested his head against a patient Irish setter. Rowan had come along years after that picture, John knew it, and yet: a part of Sherlock had still been that beautiful child, when his half brother deliberately set out to ruin him.

John laid his own cheek against Sherlock’s curls. “You are amazing,” he whispered. “You are fantastic. You are beautiful. You are mine. I love you. I will always love you.” It was going to take a long time to work through his anger, and probably a few drinks as well, but for right now he would keep his promise to Sherlock. He would stay. There was nothing he could do about all the nights Sherlock had slept alone or worse than alone, but they lived here now. He would hold Sherlock all night long, and he would be there when Sherlock woke, and he would not leave.

And that was exactly what he did.

**Author's Note:**

> For further reading (multi-part fics similar in structure and theme to which this series owes a debt):
> 
> Unhealthy John/Sherlock relationship with eventual happy ending: augustbird's [ "Burn Down/Reignite" ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/546616)
> 
> Unhealthy John/Sherlock relationship with eventual happy ending AND creepy half brother Other One: CaitlinFairchild's [ "Lessons in Astronomy" ](https://archiveofourown.org/series/79375)
> 
> Young Sherlock with super-creepy older predator, eventual happy ending with perfect John (seriously, this is the guy we want to come back in S4): ancientreader's [ "Transports" ](http://archiveofourown.org/series/437764)
> 
> And if you're over the angst and just want a really nice Christmas fic to get the taste of this one out of your mouth: withoutawish's [ "Our Enthusiasms Which Cannot Always Be Explained" ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/605441)


End file.
